Re: Montana Whiners
Author: Bruce Kelly
Date: 12-31-2007 - 12:19
Got that right, Rich. Rocky Mountain states were just ranked, again, among the top residential destinations. (My own state of Idaho ranked 4th in the nation!) Quite a few states, meanwhile, are seeing mass exodus. The publishing company where I work has about 70% of its business tied to the real estate market, so I manage to spend more time monitoring the housing industry than I do railroading. Couple of random examples: most residential is flat or dead in parts of north central California, the industrial Great Lakes area, New Jersey, etc., but it's still moving in the Rocky Mountains, Phoenix/Tucson, the Pacific Northwest, and small pockets of southern California. And fewer New Yorkers are flocking to the Carolinas and Georgia now that water seems to be a looming crisis there. The nationwide drop in prices/values has not hit the Northwest and Rockies nearly as hard. Mid-level housing prices are down a bit here, but that's been driven mostly by surplus inventory (too many new homes being built too fast) vs. a slight drop in buyers who are now either too worried to make the investment in this economic climate, can't qualify for a loan under the now-stricter guidelines, or have been unable to sell their albatross of a home in one of those other states. Homes and resorts for the ultra-rich, however, just keep on coming. Mind you, predictions (I should say, WARNINGS) of the sub-prime mortgage disaster were already circulating last December or January, long before word of it was released through the mainsteam media during the second quarter. And yes, to bring all of this back to trains, we are seeing some of the latecomer NIMBY factor here in northern Idaho.